Eclectic Technology

Annie Paul Murphy writes an intriguing article that looks at what may be happening to students as more and more technology becomes a part of the school day. Check out these two facts.

"One thousand: That’s approximately the number of instructional hours required of U.S. middle school and high school students each year.

Four thousand: That’s approximately the number of hours of digital media content U.S. youths aged 8 to 18 absorb each year." 

Murphy discusses work done by Patricia Greenfield, a developmental psychologist at UCLA. One of her points is that education at school is "formal education" while the time students spend out of school using digital media is "informal education." If this is accurate then would schools be better off having students "read copious amounts of information." 

There is a discussion on how video games build spatial skills and inductive reasoning, and may help "their ability to divide their attention among many things happening at once on the screen" and much more.

This article may make your brain work as you wrap your mind around the information that is shared. If you are looking for an article to discuss with other teachers this might be one to choose.